Bill of the Dead (Book 2): Everyday Horrors

by Gualtieri, Rick

  “That’s why I’m calling. You need to get over here. If you leave now, you should be able to make it before the sun rises.”

  As much as I was in favor of an early morning booty call, the situation in my living room was the poster child for killing the mood. Not to mention, the fact that I’d said her name out loud meant there was no way I was escaping without Tom in tow.

  “Maybe we can catch up later,” I said. “I need to hop in the shower and there’s a bit of a ... situation here that I need to...”

  “It’s not as big as the situation here,” she replied, cutting me off. “Trust me.”

  Glancing back at the dead mutt currently serving as the apartment’s doormat, I sincerely doubted that. However, I also wasn’t in favor of ticking her off, and not just because she could blow a hole through me big enough to step through. “Okay, fine. What’s up?”

  “It’s Sally.”

  “What about her? Is she okay?”

  “That remains to be seen. Her cocoon is starting to crack. I think she’s about to wake up.”

  BEHOLD THIS LUMP OF ROCK!

  Sure enough, Tom was quick to join me as we hopped in my car – recently outfitted with heavily tinted windows for obvious reasons.

  Glen wanted to join us, too, claiming his new disguise made him one hundred percent inconspicuous, but I ixnayed that as his meat suit was about as invisible as Drax the Destroyer in Infinity War. There was also the fact that it was still really fucking gross.

  Along the way, I filled Tom in on the night’s adventures, including my run-in with Char.

  “That’s fucking awesome,” he said, completely missing the point. “She’s already got a code name.”

  “Less awesome is that we apparently have a nutjob running around the city, dousing herself in manticore venom...”

  “Manticore venom?”

  “Yeah, it’s some shit Gan used once. Kills a vamp’s scent.”

  “Where the fuck did this chick get that?”

  “No idea, but it doesn’t matter, not if she thinks she can run around doing whatever the hell she wants.”

  “Not unless she’s going all Dark Knight on the bad guys. Hell, you should put her on the payroll.”

  “We’ll see. I’m not quite convinced she’s Justice League material yet.”

  We made it to Christy’s with maybe five minutes to spare until the sun peeked out over the buildings, meaning that by the time I found a parking spot I had to make a mad dash for cover. Note to self: time to once again stockpile ski masks and high SPF sunblock.

  Fortunately, I made it to the foyer of her building before anyone had need to vacuum me up. Tom, being a cock, strolled up to the front entrance at a leisurely pace, stopping halfway to put a pair of sunglasses on. He might’ve been a hell of a lot cuter in his new body, but at his core he was still an asshole.

  He stepped past me with a shit-eating grin. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day.”

  “Eat a bag of dicks.”

  “Excuse me?” a voice from further inside replied.

  We both turned to find an elderly lady on her way out. She was giving me, in particular, the stink-eye.

  “Um...”

  Tom immediately started making exaggerated sniffling noises, burying his face in his hands. “And to think. All I wanted was to visit my beloved daughter, but instead I have to deal with this brute’s sexual harassment.”

  The old lady’s eyes narrowed even more.

  “She’s ... just kidding around.”

  Tom, meanwhile, continued to pile it on. “I cook and I clean, and this is the thanks I get.”

  I grabbed hold of his arm so as to drag him toward the stairs with me, but then pulled my hand back with a cry as his faith aura momentarily sparked.

  “Shit!” Tom quickly wheeled back toward the woman. “Err, I have a new camera. Still trying to figure out how to keep the flash from going off. You have a good day now. Bye!”

  We, along with my freshly singed hand, beat a quick retreat up the stairs before she could say anything further.

  “What the fuck was that?” I hissed once we’d put a floor or two between us.

  “Just fucking with you, man. Did you see the look on her face?”

  “Not that, dumbass. Your aura. You can’t do that in front of people.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t. I still don’t have any fucking idea how it even works. It’s not like Sheila left me an instruction manual.”

  “You need to be more careful.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Try.”

  “It’s not that simple. Sometimes it just happens, like getting a boner when you’re fifteen. You could be minding your own business in PE class, when suddenly boing!”

  “Thanks for the visual.”

  Fortunately, my hand had mostly healed by the time we made it up to Christy’s floor, one of the few perks of being an immortal beast of the night.

  I spared a quick glance toward her neighbor’s apartment, still vacant as far as I was aware. The prior occupant had lost her life to a group of deranged yahoos hellbent on returning magic to the world after a five year absence. In the end, they’d succeeded, albeit not in the way they’d imagined, resulting in the reason we were here today, amongst the other crazy shit we were still dealing with.

  Christy was already waiting at her door for us, which at least served to pull my head back into the here and now.

  “Thank goodness,” she said. “I was afraid you weren’t going to make it in time.”

  I wasn’t sure whether she was talking about Sally or beating the sun, but before I could ask, my goddaughter appeared from behind her.

  “Daddy!”

  Tina stepped around her mother and practically flung herself into Tom’s arms, almost knocking him off balance and into me – which wouldn’t have been pleasant had his aura decided to get a boner again.

  “Oof! Watch Daddy’s bad arm, sweetheart.”

  “Sorry.”

  Technically, it wasn’t his bad arm, so much as it had been Sheila’s – nerve damage she’d suffered at my hands thanks to an insane prophecy that had nearly killed us both. It wasn’t something I was particularly proud of. But this was neither the time nor the place for unpleasant memories.

  He picked Tina up and we both stepped inside, where she turned toward me. “Hey, Uncle Bill!”

  “Hey, Cat. How are you doing?”

  “I’m good. You should see all the things I can do with my magic now.”

  Tom frowned. “It’s Cheetara, dude. How many times do I have to tell you?” He smiled at his daughter. “If he calls you that again, you have my permission to blast him.”

  “Really?” Her eyes opened wide in that excited way only small children could get when offered the opportunity to abuse their power.

  “No, not really,” Christy admonished. “What did I teach you about magic?”

  “Not inside the house,” Tina replied, a tiny bit of petulance in her voice.

  “And?”

  “And not to use it against anyone.”

  “Unless they deserve it,” Tom was quick to add, stepping away as Christy narrowed her eyes. “What? You never know when some asshole is gonna need a fireball smackdown.”

  I glanced at Tina from over his shoulder, waiting for a reaction. “You know, your daddy just said a naughty word.”

  She shrugged, momentarily looking wiser than her five years suggested. “I know, but Daddy doesn’t have any money.”

  “That’s a good point. I’m the Freewill, while he’s the freeloader.”

  I wasn’t sure Tina fully understood what I meant, but she giggled anyway.

  Tom put her down and grinned. “Not for long. I’m working on something.”

  “I already told you,” Christy replied, “if you need money, I’m happy to...”

  “No way. That’s all for you and Cheetara.”

  “Yes, but it was from your life insurance.”

  “Which makes it th
at much sweeter.” Tom grinned even wider. “Like I said, don’t worry about me. I have something in the works.”

  “Oh?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yep. And, unlike you, I won’t have to resort to sucking guys off in an alleyway.”

  “Tom!” Christy chastised.

  “Mommy, why does Uncle Bill suck...”

  “You never mind that, honey. Your father’s just being silly. Why don’t you go in your room and play?”

  “Okay, when are we leaving for...”

  “No daycare today. Mommy, daddy, and Uncle Bill have ... stuff to do.”

  “We’ll play later,” Tom told her as she skipped to her room. “You can throw lightning bolts at me if you want.” When I raised a questioning eyebrow at his rather insane offer, he added, “What? I’m the Icon. Isn’t magic supposed to, I dunno, bounce right off me?”

  “Yeah, when your powers work.”

  “Guess that’s one way to find out.”

  He kinda had a point there, even if it was in a batshit sort of way.

  Once Tina left the room, Christy threw him a glare. “What did I tell you about watching your language around her?”

  “Come on. I’m pretty sure her friends already say worse.”

  “She’s five.”

  “Okay, fine, but in another year or so they definitely will. Hell, I remember some of the shit Bill and me used to say. Remember that song we wrote about Mrs. Blussy and her big hairy...”

  “I hate to interrupt this stroll down memory lane,” I said, turning to Christy, “but didn’t you say something about Sally waking up?”

  She nodded. “Sorry. It’s been a distracting morning. Follow me.”

  I looked around. Christy’s place was smaller than mine, with only two bedrooms. When last I’d been here, maybe a week back, she’d cordoned off an area of her room for Sally’s cocoon, not wanting to leave it in the living room.

  True, it was a bit of a mood killer, but then – between hunting rogue vamps and dealing with Tom – there hadn’t been much opportunity for alone time lately. And that wasn’t even counting the fact that Christy had her hands full trying to teach restraint to Tina, a little girl who supposedly possessed enough power to make short work of Gandalf, Merlin, and Dumbledore all at once.

  But instead of heading toward her bedroom, Christy instead led us to a door in the far wall of her living room, one that hadn’t been there a few days ago.

  “That’s new.”

  She turned toward me, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “After what happened to Mrs. McDavish, I realized it might be dangerous to let anyone else move in next door. So, I talked to the landlord and they agreed to let me take over her lease.”

  “And what exactly do they think happened to her?”

  “Heart attack.” She shook her head. “It’s not right, but at least it gives her family some closure.”

  “Cool,” Tom said, with his typical blissful ignorance. “If her place is free, maybe I can move...”

  “I didn’t say it was free,” Christy interrupted, perhaps a bit more harshly than she’d intended.

  Though it had been three weeks, I knew she was still coming to terms with what had happened, in more ways than one. Sure, she was grateful that Tina could finally get to know her father, but the fact that Tom now inhabited my ex’s body was taking a bit more time. Truth be told, it was strange for me, too, but living with him day in and day out had actually made it easier to balance the two. One only had to listen to him for a short while to reconcile that it was Tom’s brain in her body. That, and the fact that he considered himself still very much in the running for Christy’s affections.

  Yeah, safe to say I’d somehow found myself in an even more fucked up love triangle than I had five years ago.

  “I also realized,” Christy continued, dragging me from my weird-ass reverie, “that I needed some extra space, preferably close by, where I could properly instruct Tina in the ways of our craft.”

  She stepped to the door – in the same spot, I noted, where a vampire strike team had broken into her place from the neighboring apartment – and waved her hand in front of it, a soft yellowish glow suffusing both.

  “You know, they make these things called keys,” Tom said.

  “A key wouldn’t disarm the wards and, believe me, you want them disarmed.”

  Neither of us cared to question her on that. I, for one, had experienced firsthand what Magi wards could do to unwanted visitors.

  She opened the door and led the way in. It took me all of a second and a half to realize that, even had she wanted Tom to move in, this space was no longer suited for those who cared for the comforts of home.

  For starters, gone was most of the furniture, and what was left had been pushed off to the side. Even the kitchen appliances had been removed.

  “I see you favor an open floor plan.”

  My joke fell flat as it became obvious that open it might be, but empty it was not.

  Tables full of bowls, beakers, and jars stood off to one side – a miniature alchemy lab if my gaming instincts were correct. Bookshelves filled to the brim with heavy tomes lined another wall. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling those weren’t suggestions from the local book club.

  In the center of it all, several concentric circles had been embedded into the floor. Magic was almost certainly afoot, because I had a feeling building maintenance wasn’t responsible for what looked like iron, brass, and then finally a silver circle inlaid into the floorboards.

  Strange Tiki-like torches stood at the four corners of the outermost circle – metal pylons topped with what appeared to be glowing gems of differing colors.

  However, freaky as all that shit was, it was what sat in the middle of the innermost circle, the silver one, that caught my eye.

  Surrounded by a shimmering globe of purplish energy lay Sally, or the rocky shell containing her body. She’d been placed atop what appeared to be a coffee table of all things, perhaps the most mundane item in the room. But that’s where normal took a detour.

  While attempting to stop Gan, the three-hundred-year-old psycho responsible for the return of magic, Sally had gotten caught in the crossfire between a bunch of angry mages and something else – something mean, green, and powerful enough to tear down the gates sealing off our reality from whatever lay beyond.

  The end result hadn’t been pretty. We all thought Sally had been instantly killed, flash fried like a chicken nugget in hot oil. If anything, she’d looked like one of those statues you might see in the ruins of Pompeii. However, unlike the residents of that unfortunate Vesuvius-based town, Sally wasn’t actually dead. Somehow, she was still alive, trapped inside her own rocky effigy.

  Or at least that was how she had looked back then.

  In the weeks since, the crust – for lack of a saner term – surrounding her body had begun to thicken and rise, as if it were the yeast in Satan’s bake shop. When last I’d seen her, you could just barely make out her features in the hard exterior. Now, though, she looked less like a memorial to herself and more like a clumsy artist’s attempt to recreate Gumby from solid granite. I could still make out a torso, limbs, and where her head hopefully was, but it was all featureless and formless.

  It was also moving ever so slightly.

  “Holy shit! Are you seeing this?”

  “That’s why I called you over,” Christy said, sounding far calmer than I felt. “I’m not sure what’s going on. I can’t even sense her in there anymore. My magic stopped being able to penetrate that shell a couple days ago.”

  I turned to her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  She inclined her head and smiled meekly. “Sorry. I didn’t want to worry you until I knew more.”

  Not really the answer I wanted to hear, but I guess I couldn’t blame her. For all of Christy’s magical training, I had a feeling this fell outside even her wheelhouse.

  “She looks like a giant turd,” Tom said.

  I glanced at him and sig
hed. “Definitely the wrong word to use.”

  “Oh crap, I forgot. Sorry, man. I meant, she looks like a giant piece of shit.”

  “Better ... kinda.” I turned back toward the mass that hopefully was still Sally, taking note of the energy that was enveloping her. “Any reason for the light show?”

  “It’s a modification of that time dilation spell I used on you,” Christy explained. “Relative to us, only a few minutes have passed for her since I called you.” When I raised an eyebrow, she added, “I heard a crackling noise and saw she was starting to move. So I activated it as quickly as I could and then called you. I figured it might be best if she woke up surrounded by friendly faces.”

  Left unsaid was the other side of the equation. If she woke up ... different, she’d hopefully be surrounded by people who could contain her.

  Thoughts like that weren’t really helping my mood, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. “Are we expecting anyone else?”

  Christy shook her head. “I couldn’t get through to Kelly, so it’s just us.”

  Too bad. Another witch might’ve been useful to have around right then, but oh well. We’d have to make do with the portion of our posse present and accounted for.

  “Is she ... okay inside of that thing?” Tom asked, sounding doubtful.

  Christy shot us a look that said she had no idea, cluing me in that I was right regarding her full motivation for calling us. Either way, she wasn’t playing it stupid by leaving herself as the only person standing between an unknown and her daughter.

  All at once, I was glad Tom and his cockblocking self were there, too. Though he was a long way from being even close to Sheila’s ballpark, he’d still inherited her mantle. He was the Icon, imbued with faith magic – power that existed to nullify things evil and impure ... or simply misunderstood, as in my case.

  Mind you, that assumed he could get his shit to work, which so far he’d mostly proven less than competent at.

  Regardless, between the three of us we could hopefully handle this.